I, John, your brother and fellow partaker in the tribulation and kingdom and perseverance which are in Jesus, was on the island called Patmos because of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus. I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like the sound of a trumpet, saying, “Write in a book what you see, and send it to the seven churches: to Ephesus and to Smyrna and to Pergamum and to Thyatira and to Sardis and to Philadelphia and to Laodicea.” -v.9-11

One common teaching is that these seven churches are symbolic, and should be interpreted as seven successive "church ages." For example, the Wikipedia article on the subject says the following:

The messages to the seven churches, while being for actual churches, can also be applied to seven distinct ages of the Church.

(The first result from a quick Google search yields a site that actually identifies dates and "spokesmen" for each of these church ages!)

My question here is not so much about the character of each church, or even about whether they do or do not correspond to the character of the Church in various eras since the time of Christ. What I am wondering is whether there is any indication in the text that these letters were meant to describe successive church ages? In other words, was that the authorial intent? I am specifically looking for exegetical support, if it exists.

2 Answers
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Taking the text at face value, there is nothing. I think the folks who see these letters as a "history" of the church start by assuming that all of Revelation is a prophecy of future events, and so the letters must be a prophecy of what will happen in the church before the rapture.

Some of the problems with this are:

Revelation just doesn't say that's what these letters represent. Many of the people who take these letters to be stages of church history will, in almost any other context, tell you not to spiritualize a passage because, "If the plain sense makes sense, don't add any other sense, lest you wind up with nonsense." (That's the common saying.) But that is exactly what they are doing here! Whether they are winding up with nonsense, I will leave to others to judge, but they are definitely violating their own rules and "spiritualizing" this text when the "plain sense" very much "makes sense."

After a few centuries, "the church" became a truly global body with outposts from Ireland all the way to Beijing. It is just impossible to say that, at any given time, the whole church was everywhere going through the same "phase."

I wish I could remember the reference for this one, but: If you can find a map that shows all of the cities mentioned, you will see that they all lie in a ring (link). This ring was a major Roman road connecting them all. Not only do they lie on that ring, but their order on that ring is exactly the same as the order they are given in the letters. It looks like the idea was: Read it in Ephesus, then send it down the road to Smyrna, then send it down the road to ... Pretty coincidental that the order of the churches on the road was the same as the order of coming church history!

@warren: Thanks for sprucing up my answer. Is there a link somewhere for how to do that with lists?
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user2223May 7 '13 at 21:00

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See the tour and faq pages for tips on formatting, etc.
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Jas 3.1May 7 '13 at 23:29

Thanks Bob. I'm going to accept this for now, since I don't want to forget to accept an answer, but I am still eagerly awaiting the "yes" perspective as well.
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Jas 3.1May 7 '13 at 23:31

@Jas 3.1: Thanks, and understood. I obviously have my convictions (what some people refer to as "biases" -- Can you believe that???) but you should definitely hear all sides to the story.
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user2223May 7 '13 at 23:52

The seven churches are presented as a sort of "decentralized" menora, that is, seven lamps instead of a single seven-branched lampstand. This suggests that we are supposed to take the Church as a new Israel, one whose worship is centred in heaven (on the true Zion) instead of the old one centred on earth (Paul says as much in Galatians 4).

What is more likely is that the seven churches are a retelling of Old Israel's history (following Israel's festal calendar):

Sardis (prophets) - Repent and wake up or be invaded (Trumpets/Day 5 swarms)

Philadelphia (restoration) - An open door (Atonement/Day 6 mediators)

Laodicia (first century Judaism) - False food and riches (Day 7 rest)

Following the seven letters, the rest of the Book of Revelation is an eighth letter, John's "little book." The budding sins which Jesus critiques in the fledgling church are shown to be full grown in the worship in Jerusalem (the harlot and false prophet are Jezebel and Balaam ruling and cursing Jerusalem) and they watch on as she is destroyed.

One can argue that reading the letters as having such content is arbitrary, but they do follow a pattern that is repeated from Genesis to Revelation, and in fact, this pattern is found all through the Revelation, as well as in the structure of the entire book.

A lot of this was interesting, but all of it was confusing. What is "Sabbath/Day 1"? I thought the 7th day was the Sabbath? What does "Trumpets/Day 5 swarms" mean? How did you come up with this stuff? Or did you read this somewhere? Given how confused I feel after reading this, I'll have to down-vote pending some clarifying edits. (Thanks for the effort, though.)
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Jas 3.1May 8 '13 at 3:14

@Jas3.1 Thanks. The festal calendar in Lev. 23 lists the sabbath first, establishing the weekly feast as the basis of the annual feasts.
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Mike BullMay 8 '13 at 3:23

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Just because you want to see a menorah-church parallel doesn't make it so. Can you support any of that with a clear logical path from the text to your conclusion? This feels like more arbitrary allegorical whim; if there's something here more substantial than "I like this imagery so I'll use it", please show us the connections.
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Gone QuietMay 8 '13 at 3:26

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Mike, The idea that the earthly tabernacle is a copy of the heavenly one is explicit in scripture. Perhaps you could strengthen your argument with such citations.
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RayMay 8 '13 at 12:52

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@Mike: I won't argue that you are wrong. Revelation is a hard book and who knows? Maybe you're seeing something that I never have. But "clear as day"??? Sorry, no. I need more argument, less assertion.
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user2223May 8 '13 at 15:16